CurlyShavings

I was challenged recently to read all of the Newbery Medal books.

And so I shall.

Even the ones I've already read.

2010 Medal Winner

When You Reach Me
by Rebecca Stead
Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books

2009 Medal Winner

The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman, illus. by Dave McKean
HarperCollins

2008 Medal Winner

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick

2007 Medal Winner

The Higher Power of Lucky
by Susan Patron, illus. by Matt Phelan
Simon & Schuster/Richard Jackson

2006 Medal Winner

Criss Cross
by Lynne Rae Perkins
Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins

2005 Medal Winner

Kira-Kira
by Cynthia Kadohata
Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster

2004 Medal Winner

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering
Candlewick Press

2003 Medal Winner

Crispin: The Cross of Lead
by Avi
Hyperion Books for Children

2002 Medal Winner

A Single Shard
by Linda Sue Park
Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin

2001 Medal Winner

A Year Down Yonder
by Richard Peck
Dial

2000 Medal Winner

Bud, Not Buddy
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Delacorte

1999 Medal Winner

Holes
by Louis Sachar
Frances Foster

1998 Medal Winner

Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
Scholastic

1997 Medal Winner

The View from Saturday
by E.L. Konigsburg
Jean Karl/Atheneum

1996 Medal Winner

The Midwife's Apprentice
by Karen Cushman
Clarion

1995 Medal Winner

Walk Two Moons
by Sharon Creech
HarperCollins

1994 Medal Winner

The Giver
by Lois Lowry
Houghton

1993 Medal Winner

Missing May
by Cynthia Rylant
Jackson/Orchard

1992 Medal Winner

Shiloh
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Atheneum

1991 Medal Winner

Maniac Magee
by Jerry Spinelli
Little, Brown

1990 Medal Winner

Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry
Houghton

1989 Medal Winner

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
by Paul Fleischman
Harper

1988 Medal Winner

Lincoln

A Photobiography
by Russell Freedman
Clarion

1987 Medal Winner

The Whipping Boy
by Sid Fleischman
Greenwillow

1986 Medal Winner

Sarah, Plain and Tall
by Patricia MacLachlan
Harper

1985 Medal Winner

The Hero and the Crown
by Robin McKinley
Greenwillow

1984 Medal Winner

Dear Mr. Henshaw
by Beverly Cleary
Morrow

1983 Medal Winner

Dicey's Song
by Cynthia Voigt
Atheneum

1982 Medal Winner

A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers
by Nancy Willard
Harcourt

1981 Medal Winner

Jacob Have I Loved
by Katherine Paterson
Crowell

1980 Medal Winner

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-1832
by Joan W. Blos
Scribner

1979 Medal Winner

The Westing Game
by Ellen Raskin
Dutton

1978 Medal Winner

Bridge to Terabithia
by Katherine Paterson
Crowell

1977 Medal Winner

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
by Mildred D. Taylor
Dial

1976 Medal Winner

The Grey King
by Susan Cooper
McElderry/Atheneum

1975 Medal Winner

M. C. Higgins, the Great
by Virginia Hamilton
Macmillan

1974 Medal Winner

The Slave Dancer
by Paula Fox
Bradbury

1973 Medal Winner

Julie of the Wolves
by Jean Craighead George
Harper

1972 Medal Winner

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
by Robert C. O'Brien
Atheneum

1971 Medal Winner

Summer of the Swans
by Betsy
byars
Viking

1970 Medal Winner

Sounder
by William H. Armstrong
Harper

1969 Medal Winner

The High King
by Lloyd Alexander
Holt

1968 Medal Winner

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
by E. L. Konigsburg
Atheneum

1967 Medal Winner

Up a Road Slowly
by Irene Hunt
Follett

1966 Medal Winner

I, Juan de Pareja
by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
Farrar

1965 Medal Winner

Shadow of a Bull
by Maia Wojciechowska
Atheneum

1964 Medal Winner

It's Like This, Cat
by Emily Neville
Harper

1963 Medal Winner

A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'Engle
Farrar

1962 Medal Winner

The Bronze Bow
by Elizabeth George Speare
Houghton

1961 Medal Winner

Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Scott O'Dell
Houghton

1960 Medal Winner

Onion John
by Joseph Krumgold
Crowell

1959 Medal Winner

The Witch of Blackbird Pond
by Elizabeth George Speare
Houghton

1958 Medal Winner

Rifles for Watie
by Harold Keith
Crowell

1957 Medal Winner

Miracles on Maple Hill
by Virginia Sorensen
Harcourt

1956 Medal Winner (10/19/2010)

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
by Jean Lee Latham
Houghton

1955 Medal Winner

The Wheel on the School
by Meindert DeJong
Harper

1954 Medal Winner

...And Now Miguel
by Joseph Krumgold
Crowell

1953 Medal Winner

Secret of the Andes
by Ann Nolan Clark
Viking

1952 Medal Winner

Ginger Pye
by Eleanor Estes
Harcourt

1951 Medal Winner

Amos Fortune, Free Man
by Elizabeth Yates
Dutton

1950 Medal Winner (11/17/2010)

The Door in the Wall
by Marguerite de Angeli
Doubleday

1949 Medal Winner

King of the Wind
by Marguerite Henry
Rand McNally

1948 Medal Winner

The Twenty-One Balloons
by William Pène du Bois
Viking

1947 Medal Winner

Miss Hickory
by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
Viking

1946 Medal Winner

Strawberry Girl
by Lois Lenski
Lippincott

1945 Medal Winner

Rabbit Hill
by Robert Lawson
Viking

1944 Medal Winner (11/29/2010)

Johnny Tremain
by Esther Forbes
Houghton

1943 Medal Winner

Adam of the Road
by Elizabeth Janet Gray
Viking

1942 Medal Winner

The Matchlock Gun
by Walter Edmonds
Dodd

1941 Medal Winner

Call It Courage
by Armstrong Sperry
Macmillan

1940 Medal Winner

Daniel Boone
by James Daugherty
Viking

1939 Medal Winner

Thimble Summer
by Elizabeth Enright
Rinehart

1938 Medal Winner

The White Stag
by Kate Seredy
Viking

1937 Medal Winner

Roller Skates
by Ruth Sawyer
Viking

1936 Medal Winner

Caddie Woodlawn
by Carol Ryrie Brink
Macmillan

1935 Medal Winner

Dobry
by Monica Shannon
Viking

1934 Medal Winner

Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women
by Cornelia Meigs
Little, Brown

1933 Medal Winner

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze
by Elizabeth Lewis
Winston

1932 Medal Winner

Waterless Mountain
by Laura Adams Armer
Longmans

1931 Medal Winner

The Cat Who Went to Heaven
by Elizabeth Coatsworth
Macmillan

1930 Medal Winner (01/06/2011)

Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
by Rachel Field
Macmillan

1929 Medal Winner

The Trumpeter of Krakow
by Eric P. Kelly
Macmillan

1928 Medal Winner

Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon
by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Dutton

1927 Medal Winner

Smoky, the Cowhorse
by Will James
Scribner

1926 Medal Winner

Shen of the Sea
by Arthur Bowie Chrisman
Dutton

1925 Medal Winner

Tales from Silver Lands
by Charles Finger
Doubleday

1924 Medal Winner

The Dark Frigate
by Charles Hawes
Little, Brown

1923 Medal Winner

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
by Hugh Lofting
Stokes

1922 Medal Winner

The Story of Mankind
by Hendrik Willem van Loon
Liveright

The French Admiral by Dewey Lambdin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I picked this up to sate my need for more Patrick O'Brian and while I would (and do) read each of the 21 over and over again, once of this Dewey Lambdin is enough for me.

Lewrie spends quite a bit of energy trying to get ashore and into someone's bed in this book. While that in itself is not unusual for a sailor tale, it's the (too-high) level of details that turns me away from this character. Lewrie, as he gains his sea-legs through this book, matures as both man and sailor and it's that part of the plot that redeems the book for me. Perhaps not surprisingly, his attitudes towards women matures through this timeline as well.

There's some good adventure during the evacuation as he matures as a leader that bears some further inspection. And certainly there are some flashes of recognition from him that he is maturing in various forms along his journey.

I liked this one enough to seek out the first in this series to see where Lewrie starts. Since I prefer the Lewrie at the end of The French Admiral to the beginning, I'm not certain if I will like The King's Coat any more than this one. Stay tuned, etc.

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